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From: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Homebrew rules sets
Message-ID: <210@shark.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Jan-84 14:37:15 EST
Article-I.D.: shark.210
Posted: Mon Jan 16 14:37:15 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Jan-84 01:28:27 EST
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR.
Lines: 59

Is anyone out there fond of severely mutated rules?
My curiousity is aroused by seeing all this talk by people who are
playing with supposedly strict AD&Dtm, and seeing the differences in
game philosophy.

I have to admit to being from a heretical background, though.
Therefore, anyone with strong religious convictions in favor of
the AD&Dtm system, continue reading at your own risk.
(I find that AD&Dtm offends my aesthetic sense, and have no major gripes
with it per se, although I disagree with many "simplifying" decisions.)

History of a FRP heretic:
I started frping way back in my junior year of college, and
it was using a rather unusual rules set, a modified Warlock, which
was modified D&D as described in Strategic Review (?) magazine.
The notion of spell-points was introduced here, along with a rather
different idea of how weapon damage worked.
We (our DM Spider and myself) tweaked mercilessly upon the rules
whenever it looked like they were inaccurate or unfair.
This included incorporating AD&Dtm stuff as it was published.
Then, when I moved off to California, Spidey ran into a friend who
used the Chivalry and Sorcery rules.  Since these were inherently
better organized than the AD&D rules, with a much more reasonably
designed Magic system, we decided to hack on them instead.  Obviously
they still had far to go.

When I moved back to God's Country, we decided to completely revise,
expunging all traces of any published system.  This has been done
to a great extent, but we are somewhat hampered by the desire to keep
some hint of compatibility with the other systems.  That allows the
folk who have become addicted to other systems to play in our respective
worlds.

Our current ruleset looks sort of like C&S except that it doesn't.
We have a lot more information about characters, a much improved
magic system with reasons for everything, and the combat system
is inherently more flexible and comfortable.  All has been tuned to
improve the roleplay aspect, somewhat to the detriment of the wargame
simulation aspect, and unfortunately it is too possible to get really
ferociously nasty characters, with time.  It does take time, though.

Player-monster equilibrium is maintained by having the behaviour and
intelligence of the monsters CLEARLY DEFINED, thus allowing for the
nuking of player character monsters, unless reasonable caution is
maintained.  If monsters fight as fiercely and (when appropriate) as
cleverly as the player characters, then they have an even chance.
Some fudging does take place since it is rather traumatic to blow away
a character which has had so much effort and care put into its design.
However, mercy is tempered by justice.

As a drawback we have what some consider to be just TOO MANY characteristics
and indices.  This is why we are automating the game, which process is taking
considerable time.

So.  What has anyone out there done about hacking rules?  Anything in
the way of automated game management aids?

Hutch
...tektronix!tekecs!hutch